“sober certainty of waking bliss”

I’m here going over everything, specifically “A Masque at Ludlow Castle” right now, and my notes in the margins and in my notebook are really quite funny. I read them aloud to Madeline and Rachel today already, but they are striking me as very entertaining right now, especially out of context. Some life lessons, perhaps. Ha. Though in context they make perfect sense. Some of them.

Random Notes on Milton’s “Masque”

“…so to lose virginity is to participate in the ultimate earthy degradation”

“A healthy, blissful marriage is to be aspired to.”

“Drunkenness –> misery = arrogance and ignorance”

“Lust leads to the pollution of the soul.”

Me, to Comus, as he tries to take the Lady’s virginity: “It’s special dude, not something she can just throw away” (and yes, I actually wrote this in the margin)

And, to sum it up: “After Comus sticks her to the chair (with semen??), she never speaks again”

I actually am taking useful notes on my legal pad, I’m sorry I’m not sharing all that. Maybe in a little while I’ll post something more substantive/helpful.

Like Madeline, I am going to share my paper with you all:here it is. I wish I had a few more weeks to work on it, but as I told Dr. C before I turned it in, it is what it is.

I meant to blog yesterday, but truly I could not. I had been so intensely thinking about Milton for five days (Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday I was focused on Paradise Lost almost exclusively, everything abandoned for the sake of my presentation and paper) and once everything was done my brain was just exhausted. I’m sure you guys can relate. I could hardly even talk to anyone after class, I sort of just ignored my housemates and went to Borders to wander around for awhile. After such an intense experience (because I really think that intense is one of the only words that works here) with such a complicated, beautiful, unbelievable work (and author, might I add) it was suddenly just…over. My mind was really only capable of wandering, wondering how we had managed to pack all that into five weeks, wondering about how much I had learned a grew from this experience. Because I know I have. I’m not sure about all the ways the seminar has changed me yet, but I know eventually I will discover the little ripples of change this class, this professor and this poet have sent my way. I can predict what some of the changes will be, or even some that I can already notice. I think I am a more mature reader, a more discerning and thoughtful reader. Because Milton is so interrelated and meaningful and charged with all sorts of ideas and humor and seriousness, I know I will seek such depth from the books and poems I read in the future. I am definitely converted technologically, which excites me. I learned about delicious, blogs and blogging…and I do hope to continue this blog, not as one exclusively devoted to Milton, but about all the books I read. I hope others in class continue to blog or start a new one. The blog is something I have not really enjoyed in my English classes before, but this seminar has opened my eyes to how useful and exciting blogs can be. Well, I am about to go meet some of the class to study for the final (!!) so I will wrap this up. I want to thank everyone (Madeline, Rachel, Kim, Brittany, and Emily) in our seminar. I think we were so lucky to have such a wonderful mix of people and so very lucky to have such a small class! I’m sure I don’t think I’ve ever been in such an ideal learning environment, and I probably won’t experience it again. And finally, thank you Dr. Campbell for sharing your time, knowledge and passion with us. I know it has changed me as a student and probably a person, too. It was a great class, I only wish it had been weeks and weeks longer.

So my presentation on typology has me thinking all about time and the relationships between all the characters, etc. and all the work I’ve done on it today reminded me of something I”ve had a problem with since Book 3, but never bothered to ask about. So the Son offers to take the fall for mankind in Book 3…man doesn’t fall until Book 9? How does this compute? Am I totally missing something? God knows man will fall all the way back in Book 3?! (I mean, he actually knows about the fall and redemption in the first few lines of the epic, as I will talk about in my presentation, but seriously, they actually talk about it in Book 3). I just have trouble reconciling the timeline here, of the books. Do they occur in chronological order? Or since time before the fall is eternal does it really not matter when the Son decided to take the punishment to redeem mankind? If they decided way back when, why did God wait so long to send his son to earth? Anyway, I know everyone is busy with their papers (me too, I should be writing right now) but this question has been on my mind for awhile.

I took Philosophy 151B last semester, which is called Introductory Logic. I had Professor Emswiler, who is a serious trip. I loved her. It is a great great class and I learned a lot; I really recommend taking it. When reading Satan’s argument to Eve and talking about it in class on Wednesday I was reminded of a section of Logic where were learned about fallacies. A fallacy is part of an argument that renders the entire argument invalid because it is flawed in some way.Dr. Campbell kept mentioning the way Satan had created a perfect argument because he reasoned in circles, therefore tricking Eve. Well, if Eve had taken Phil 151 she would have known not to fall for such faulty logic. I’m pretty sure that Satan has used several fallacies in his argument (I’m sure that someone, somewhere has already analyzed it logically, and I am in no way an expert, but it’s interesting to think about).

First I would argue that Satan’s entire argument is a fallacy of weak induction because it is an appeal to an unqualified authority. This is an argument from an authority in which the authority lacks credibility. A “real life” example of this fallacy we had in class was: “After examining the new mole on my neck, my hairstylist told me that it will get better by drinking herbal tea. Since she is a good stylist, my neck should get better if I drink herbal tea.” Since this is an example, it is fairly obvious to see the fallacy of the argument and why it’s not valid. In PL, Eve’s highest authority is God; she knows this. Satan asserts himself (as a talking serpent, no less) as an authority on something he has no way of knowing, and Eve falls for this appeal to an unqualified authority. “Look on me,/Me who have touched and tasted, yet both live” (IX, 687-688). This animal has no authority regarding the tree and the fruit, yet the argument appeals to Eve anyway. Eve should have known not to trust a lowly creature before trusting God, Adam and herself. Fallacies are really tricky, though. What also makes this entire scene interesting is that Satan is being hypocritical (he’s not really a serpent, he has never tasted the fruit, etc.) and Milton stated earlier (in Book III) that only God could discern hypocrisy.

I would also argue that Satan commits several fallacies of presumption too. He definitely utilizes complex questions, which is when multiple questions are hidden in a single question. The example from class was: “Does the president really believe that the American public is so naive that they will endorse large cuts in our Medicare benefits for seniors? He’d respond ‘No’, of course, so there should be no cuts.” I’m pretty sure every question Satan asks in loaded in this manner. “Look on me,/Me who have touched and tasted, yet both live,/And life more perfect have attained than fate/Meant me, by venturing higher than my lot./Shall that be shut to man, which to the beast/is open?” (IX, 687-692). Or perhaps: “And wherein lies/The offense, that man should this attain to know?/What can your knowledge hurt him, or this tree/Impart against his will is all be his?” (IX, 725-728). I’m not sure if those are perfect examples, but I think you can get the idea.

A second fallacy of presumption (this is the going around in circles one!!) is called begging the question, and I’m pretty sure it’s what Satan does here: “Of evil, if what is evil/ Be real, what not known, since easier shunned?/God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just; / Not just, not God; not feared then, nor obeyed: / Your fear of death itself removes the fear” (IX, 700-703). When using this fallacy, the arguer creates the illusion that inadequate premises are adequate by leaving out a key premise, by restating the conclusion as a premise pr by reasoning in a circle. The example from class was: “Everyone believes what Senator Henry says because he is the most credible member of the Senate. He is the most credible member of the Senate because everyone believes what he says.” I think Satan uses this fallacy much more complexly than the example; and I think it’s funny the definition is basically what we were saying in class about it!

Finally, I noticed one last fallacy in Satan’s argument, one towards the beginning, a fallacy of relevance. The red herring fallacy is committed when the arguer diverts the attention of the listener by changing the subject to a different but subtly related topic. The class example was: “The Civil Rights Initiative forbids discrimination on the grounds of race or sex. Bathrooms are segregated by sex. Ladies, do we want to use the same bathrooms as me? Obviously, we should not adopt this initiative.” Satan is so clever and subtle with this: “Queen of this universe, do not believe/Those rigid threats of death; ye shall not die:/How should ye? By the fruit? It gives you life/To knowledge. By the threatener? Look on me,/Me who have touched and tasted, yet both live” (IX, 684-688). While reading this all I could think was, Um GOD?! Does he not have something to do with this?! Isn’t he the one that has to do with your death is you eat this?! God and God’s law is the most relevant part of the argument, yet Satan diverts the attention away from him. And Eve falls.

Fallacies are really tricky to spot a lot of the time and many people win arguments based on faulty logic (i.e. Satan). So Eve can’t really be BLAMED but she is not totally innocent victim. All the verbal runaround made her lose her head. If, as Dr. C likes to talk about, she had actually caught on to Satan’s logical flaws, just imagine how much she would have grown intellectual and spiritually… Anyway, my totally amateur take on the whole thing.

So I went from reading the new posts every day and writing pretty frequently to not doing either in almost a week. Ugh. I feel like I just needed to get my feet wet again, remember how to do this. Getting sick really knocked me down for a while there. But I am back. Currently I am simultaneously working on my presentation and throwing around paper ideas in my head. I’ll get back on later and write a few real blog posts tonight after my presentation is sufficiently worked on. So stay tuned for that!

Since we didn’t really get to talk about book V in class today (which was fine, what a great class!) I thought I’d write a post about some of my thoughts. I liked this section a lot; Milton sort of gained some points back concerning Eve. She is referred to by Adam as “heaven’s last best gift” (19) and I like that description… I guess this is me embracing the difference between men and women, and appreciating the fact that Milton is too. Women are sort of like the icing on the cake; the cake is okay without icing, but i mean, seriously, it’s not that good. But then again, they are so much better than that; God’s final and best gift to the world is Eve. Well, even if my commentary is nonsense, I loved Milton’s phraseology there. And Milton made me chuckle and smile gladly when he calls Adam “our primitive great sire.” Even if his meaning did not recall “cave man” to his contemporaries, this twenty-first century gal really enjoyed it.

But anyway, I liked how Eve is characterized throughout this book. “For I this night, / Such night till this I never passed, have dreamed, / If dreamed, not as I oft am wont, of thee / Works of day past, or morrow’s next design” (30-33). I LOVE that she dreams. She dreams like all the time, about her love and her days and the future. Aw, she’s a lot like me! That’s just such an exquisite idea; they are in paradise, in want of nothing, and still she dreams. I also like the description of the dream (35-70+) which reminded me of her account of her creation. She thinks the voice calling her is Adam (because who else would it be? that’s who it was the first time) and she trusts it this time, because she was wrong at the very beginning. This dream just seemed like an echo of her first awakening, and maybe Satan did that on purpose (he’s good and evil like that).

The last section that really told me something about Eve occurs in the lines 129 to 131, when Eve cries after Adam comforts her. Even though she is comforted (”she was cheered”) she still cries, which indicates a deep emotion. She seems older and wiser than Adam to me in this moment. She has had this horrible, unexplainable dream and she knows it’s scary even though it’s gone. Her character just has more depth in this moment, and definitely more emotional depth than Adam has. I liked Milton’s Eve in book V.

AND, when I was looking up some things for this post, I reread Book IV, lines 460 to 475 and discovered Eve’s relationship with God, and she has it before she even sees Adam!

As I bent down to look, just opposite,
A shape within the watery gleam appeared
Bending to look on me, I started back,
It started back, but pleased I soon returned,
Pleased it returned as soon with answering looks
Of sympathy and love; there I had fixed
Mine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,
Had not a voice thus warned me, What though seest,
What there though seest fair creature is thyself,
With thee it came and goes: but follow me,
And I will bring thee where no shadow stays
Thy coming, and thy soft embraces, he
Whose image thou art, him thou shall enjoy
Inseparably thine, to him shalt bear
Multitudes like thyself, and thence be called
Mother of the human race: what could I do,
But follow strait, invisibly thus led?

What voice could Eve hear (my own emphasis) but God’s? Or perhaps an angel’s. But I would like to think of this voice that speaks to Eve as God’s, comforting her and explaining her purpose. So until I am told this is wrong, I feel a lot better about Eve’s relationship with God and to Adam. It’s still so complicated, but I am getting more satisfied with Paradise Lost’s treatment of Eve.

Seriously, with all my confusion and interpreting and questions I have really neglected to enjoy Milton’s poetry and his unbelievable relationship with words. I thought I’d briefly share this. Sometimes when I was reading Book 3 I would just stare at the page for a few seconds in utter amazement at how cool the lines sounded, the images they evoked, etc. The phrase above (in the title) is from Book 3, Lines 377 - 383:

“…but when thou shad’st
The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud
Drawn round thee like a radiant shrine,
Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear,
yet dazzle heaven, that brightest seraphim
Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.”

I mean…come on! I can feel the radiant beams; I actually feel lighter while reading that passage. I know that’s not very useful interpretively, but I think it’s important to step back sometimes and consider how the words make you feel. It is a poem after all. Anyway, I love this part. The Father’s (or are they talking about the Son here, I can’t always tell, it’s really hard to tell who is being talked about sometimes) glory is so great it cannot be looked at directly (or seen at all unless He shows himself).

As I’ve been sitting here reading this passage over and I realized I had no idea what “that brightest seraphim” referred to. The angels? So I looked it up in the OED and it has several meanings, one being the name of an angel or a class of angels. In Biblical tradition they are supposedly the six-winged creatures that hover over God’s throne. The most interesting thing is that the word “seraphim” is etymologically related the meaning “fiery serpent.” Satan? Even if Milton was just referring to plain old angels, that relationship is really cool.

So for some reason I’ve been in a Milton-rut for the past few days; I’m not sure if I have just suddenly hit that “holy crap I have a ton of stuff to do” point and that’s distracting me, or if I am simply struggling with Paradise Lost. I’ve been reading it, keeping up, etc., but the whole time I have been feeling like I’m missing something. It’s just not clicking like the poetry did. I’ve been thinking about why I’m having so much trouble and not really enjoying PL, and have realized that it’s probably a combination of stressed-out and simply not reading it very well (I really enjoyed and got something out of our discussions on Thursday during class, so I know I’m not being a total dunce). So in order to solve my problems, I decided that listening to someone read the text and reading along might help and it really really did. I may not have anything insightful to say but I did get a lot more out of it by hearing it and reading it at the same time. I listened to it here and it’s really cool: a bunch of different people from around the world have recorded the entire work (and there are a ton of other books recorded on the website too). I figured someone else might find this cool or useful.

Book 2 is pretty amazing. It really made me think; I have a million questions. But, first of all, this book really reinforced the similarities that exist between Satan, the other fallen angels and human beings. As described by Milton, Satan’s faults are ones I have also suffered. He is vain and proud (”to pursue/vain war with heaven, and by success untaught/His proud imaginations thus displayed,” Book II, Lines 9-10) and his fallen colleagues are jealous (”he lordly sits/our envied sovereign,” Book II, Lines 243-244), and hateful (”how wearisome/Eternity so spent in worship paid to whom we hate,” Book II, Lines 248-249). They contemplate starting another war against heaven to get revenge against God for their fall, but decide that their vengeance will best be obtained by bringing harm to God’s new creation: man. They also like this option because it is easier than fighting again…basically, they are lazy! (”Thither let us bend all our thoughts, to learn/ What creatures there inhabit, of what mould,/or substance, how endured, and what their power,/ And where their weakness, how attempted best,/By force or subtlety” Book II, Lines 354-358). They didn’t get their way and now they want to get back at God, but because they are weaker they want to get back at him in an easier way. They are so passive aggressive! They want to hurt God by either controlling men or bringing them to their side against Him (”This would surpass/Common revenge, and interrupt his joy/ In our confusion, and our joy upraise/ In his disturbance; when his darling sons/…shall curse/ Their fair originals” (Book II, Lines 370-375). They actually remind me of children at their worst moments, because children haven’t really learned that the world isn’t always fair and that they won’t always get what they want. They don’t know that they need to obey their parents because the parents really do know what best… God here really is the father, and Satan and the other fallen ones have failed to stop having the tantrum. Kids will get tired out, eventually feel the need to be comforted by mom or dad; after all what they give you is always worth what they take away, at least when you’re six. But many adults feel these emotions too. Perhaps the best way to see Satan is as someone who let their emotions get the better of them…forever. Absolutely failing to let reason take over, hating himself so much that he cannot even give himself a rest by giving in. Talk about exhausting.

I also found it fascinating that Milton make Satan so attractive. I know we talked about this a little bit in class, but for me this came up again in book 2. For example, I am really drawn to Satan when Milton describes him like this: “And princely counsel in his face yet shone,/ Majestic though in ruin: sage he stood/ With Atlantean shoulders fit to bear/ The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look/Drew audience and attention still as night/Or summer’s noontide air, while thus he spoke” (Book II, Lines 304-309). I mean, I want to hear this guy talk too! Why does Milton do this? And why does Milton talk about Satan first, in Book 1 and Book 2? I like Satan….I begin PL with sympathies for this character (who I know, logically, is the villain, I’ve read the Bible, existed on Earth, etc.)! Milton! Ugh! He’s playing around with my emotions! Is Milton doing this on purpose? Is he actually mimicking the fall and redemption through his readers? Because right now I am pretty aware of being seduced by these unsavory characters…will I be redeemed later when Milton shows me God and Adam and Eve? Will I like them more? Will Satan actually do something that causes me to hate/fear/dislike/avoid him like I should? Is Milton messing with his readers’ minds? (The answer is yes for this reader, I’m fairly sure).

Another part that makes me go, “Um, Milton, what’s up with this?! Are you secretly rooting for Satan too?!” is lines 250 to 255. The fallen angels are looking for freedom, they think that they can best be free by having no one to be accountable to, by serving no one but themselves. Isn’t this what Milton most desires? Freedom to decide issues individually, without outside pressures restricting? He sort of says that this isn’t a good idea, what the fallen are suggesting here, but it’s not very convincing. He makes me so confused about how to feel about Satan and Hell, etc.

I think I’ll write a separate post about hell and Milton’s descriptions, because I thought they were really cool.

I was listening to the NPR Books podcast this morning during work and they featured an interview with Patrick Hemingway, one of Ernest Hemingway’s sons. He celebrated his 80th birthday last Saturday and was interviewed to mark the occasion and talk about his father and, of course, his father’s books. There was a question concerning the prevalence of suicide in the Hemingway family and Mr. Hemingway responded to the question very interestingly and it reminded me of several things we have been talking about in class, so I feel really compelled to share it. (I copied this down by pausing my ipod every few words, but you can actually listen to the whole interview here, it’s pretty cool).

Mr. Hemingway said: “There’s a tendency in the public to want to endow all geniuses with some sort of madness, I think i must be envy on their part. I mean, to be a great writer…I mean, there’s three or four of them in every generation and people have to accept this, it’s not democracy.”

For some reason, this reminded me so much of Milton and the discussion we had on Monday. We are used to artists and writers having some sort of neuroses or mental illness (Freud’s view of art, as Professor Campbell said, this is what we’re accustomed to think in this century). That’s how great poems are written and how great art is made. It has to be a struggle. Milton must be sp arrogant because he is delusional, insecure - oh, he just has a superiority complex, that’s why he’s so great. But is Mr. Hemingway right? Are we just envious of Milton’s abilities and the security he find in them? Can’t we just accept that he’s just one of the greats and he was confident enough to recognize that for himself? I think we can. I feel like I’ve talked about this issue a lot, but it’s one that I keep coming back to, and this interview and Patrick Hemingway’s remarks just reminded me of it. It’s kind of fun to have everyday things remind me of Milton. He clearly has begun to infiltrate my subconscious.